It wouldn’t be a Montreal Christmas without a Wainwright concert. And while we aren’t as lucky as New York City, which welcomed the entire clan to Carnegie Hall Wednesday night for the McGarrigle Christmas Hour – with guests such as Emmylou Harris, Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson – we’ll get a scaled-down version Friday as the lovely Martha brings her soul-stirring songs to Metropolis.

Martha did Martha on Tuesday, as she and the whole family (including Rufus and Kate & Anna McGarrigle) shared cookie recipes and carols on Martha Stewart Living.

And, as she hops between shows in and around the Montreal area (Brossard, Quebec City, Shawinigan, Laval, Ottawa) over the next week, the Brooklyn-based singer will take great pleasure in recharging her batteries at the family home in Outremont.

“It’s exciting,” she said, reached last week at a tour stop in Winnipeg. “I can come home after shows, mom will have a pot of soup on. It’s really nice; it’s a perfect way to recover after this stint.”

She is wrapping up a three-month stint of touring – the latest leg of a year and-a-half run she has spent promoting her excellent album I Know You’re Married But I’ve Got Feelings Too, released in May 2007.

The new year will take her to London, where she will be reprising her role in Kurt Vile’s the 7 Deadly Sins, at the Royal Opera House with the Royal Ballet.

“I’ll be living on Drury Lane in January and February,” she said, “a pretend life, with ballet slippers, going to ballet class every day, singing with an orchestra – it’s a great reality to step out of my own thing (and into).”

Wainwright was exposed to a very different reality at the end of September when she was invited for a two-week trip to the Arctic aboard a Russian research vessel. Fellow Canadian songbird Feist was her roommate. They were among 40 artists, researchers, scientists, filmmakers, engineers and journalists brought together as part of a project called Cape Farewell, to raise awareness about climate change.

“It was really amazing,” she said of the experience.

“It’s something I have to go back and think about. It happened and then right away I flew to Hamburg to start this tour.

“There were so many revelations and thoughts and such a new sense of time and space and what you’re worth as a human being on the planet. When you’re in such a large place, it’s very humbling.

“To go on the road the next day, which is about totally self-obsessed feelings – Do I sell enough records? Do people like me? – was disturbing. I had to compartmentalize my experience in Greenland.”

Serena Ryder wasted no time in announcing the news to start off our phone interview, Monday afternoon. The husky-voiced Canadian singer-songwriter, now 25, has lots to celebrate. She won a Juno for best new artist in April.

Her new album Is It O.K. – produced by John Alagia (Dave Matthews, John Mayer) and recorded in Santa Monica, Calif., at the same studio as Fleetwood Mac’s Rumors – has been out for a month, and will be released in the U.S. in February.

“I definitely feel like I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing,” she said. “How crazy is that? I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now.”

Ryder’s earthy vocals evoke a mix of Melissa Etheridge and P.J. Harvey. She cites influences ranging from John Prine to Ani DiFranco, Tracy Chapman, Neil Young (“I listened to Harvest over and over – I learned harmonica because of him.”), Leonard Cohen and, um, Supertramp.

She paid tribute to great Canadian songs on her 2006 covers album If Your Memory Serves You Well. Is It O.K. finds her exploring strikingly personal territory.

“The title is about checking yourself when you’re going through a lot of different things in life. Being human can be really painful; it’s full-on. (The album) is about being inside of yourself through the whole process.”

It has also been a rough year for Ryder, who lost a close friend when her former manager Bonnie O’Donnell, 32, died of pneumonia in January. “I was definitely going through a lot, emotionally,” she said.

While none of the songs on the new album are specifically about O’Donnell, half of them were written in the two weeks following her death – the effect of which can be felt in the overall intensity of the material.

“All music is autobiographical,” Ryder said. “I don’t care what anybody says. Everyone shares a part of their soul in music ... regardless of whether a song is 100 per cent factual.”

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